Archive for September, 2009
Food stamp list soars past 35 million: USDA
Food stamp list soars past 35 million: USDA – | | Reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – More than 35 million Americans received food stamps in June, up 22 percent from June 2008 and a new record as the country continued to grapple with the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
The food stamp program, which helps cover the cost of groceries for one in nine Americans, has grown in step with the U.S. unemployment rate which stood at 9.4 percent in July.
The Labor Department will release August employment figures on Friday.
June was the seventh straight month in which food stamp rolls set a record. The average benefit in June was $133.12 per person.
(Reporting by Roberta Rampton and Chuck Abbott; editing by Jim Marshall)
via Food stamp list soars past 35 million: USDA | U.S. | Reuters.
New Math for Artificial Neurons
New Math for Artificial Neurons - IEEE Spectrum:
Floating-point processors in FPGAs make for artificial neurons quick enough to communicate with real ones
Now researchers at the University of Bristol, in England, say they’ve come up with a method to model neural activity with enough detail and speed for living cells to talk to synthetic neurons. ”We want to create an artificial brain that can communicate with a real brain,” says José Nuñez-Yañez, a senior lecturer in electronic engineering in Bristol’s Centre for Communications Research.
Nuñez-Yañez says previous efforts to model neural activity have relied on supercomputers and on generalized processors that don’t necessarily work well in parallel. What these machines model is so complex that it can take 30 days to process one second of activity. Instead, Nuñez-Yañez uses field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) that rely on floating-point processors, with perhaps 1000 processors running in parallel. (Floating-point mathematics represents numbers in a computer in a way that allows the decimal point to be placed in different positions—or ”float”—in relation to the significant digits in the number, such as in the numbers 1.23456 and 12345.6. Compared with fixed-point representation, where the decimal is set in one particular place in a string of digits, floating-point representation results in smaller rounding errors and therefore can be more precise.)
via IEEE Spectrum: New Math for Artificial Neurons.
Unemployment Rate Hits 9.7 Percent As Economy Sheds 216,000 Jobs In August
Unemployment Rate Hits 9.7 Percent As Economy Sheds 216,000 Jobs In August
The national unemployment rate rose to 9.7 percent — the highest level since June 1983 — as the U.S. economy shed 216,000 jobs in August, the government announced on Friday morning. That’s up from 9.4 percent in July.
By a broader measure that includes forced part-timers and people who’d like to work but aren’t looking, the national unemployment rate reached 16.8 percent — up a staggering 6 percent from this time last year.
The pace of job cuts has steadily slowed since the beginning of the year, when monthly losses exceeded 700,000 in January.
The total number of unemployed is 14.9 million, roughly double the number at the start of the recession in December 2007.
via Unemployment Rate Hits 9.7 Percent As Economy Sheds 216,000 Jobs In August.
Progressives Pay the Price for Confusing a Party With a Movement
Progressives Pay the Price for Confusing a Party With a Movement
By David Sirota - Truthdig
The difference between parties and movements is simple: Parties are loyal to their own power regardless of policy agenda; movements are loyal to their own policy agenda regardless of which party champions it. This is one of the few enduring political axioms, and it explains why the organizations purporting to lead an American progressive “movement” have yet to build a real movement, much less a successful one.
Though the 2006 and 2008 elections were billed as progressive movement successes, the story behind them highlights a longer-term failure. During those contests, most leaders of Washington’s major labor, environmental, anti-war and anti-poverty groups spent millions of dollars on a party endeavor—specifically, on electing a Democratic president and Democratic Congress. In the process, many groups subverted their own movement agendas in the name of electoral unity.
The effort involved a sleight of hand. These groups begged their grass-roots members—janitors, soccer moms, veterans and other “regular folks”—to cough up small-dollar contributions in return for the promise of movement pressure on both parties’ politicians. Simultaneously, these groups went to dot-com and Wall Street millionaires asking them to chip in big checks in exchange for advocacy that did not offend those fat cats’ Democratic politician friends (or those millionaires’ economic privilege).
via Truthdig – Reports – Progressives Pay the Price for Confusing a Party With a Movement.
Current economic growth model is ‘immoral’, says John Prescott |
Current economic growth model is ‘immoral’, says Prescott - | guardian.co.uk
With the world’s population growing to nine million by 2050, the Britain’s former deputy PM predicts far more crucial and complex talks in Copenhagen than in Kyoto
John Prescott, the former UK climate negotiator, called on developed nations today to accept a new model of economic growth that would create a more equitable spread of carbon emissions in the world. Speaking to the Guardian in Beijing, Prescott said talks at Copenhagen would probably not be decided until an 11th-hour crisis, but that no global consensus could be reached without a fairer spread of emissions.
Since helping to bang heads together to set the first targets on carbon in Kyoto in 1997, Prescott said the world had started to develop a new model of restraint.
“The reality is that the world has found a rationing process. It is not … get growth as fast as you can and get the jobs and sod the rest,” he said. “The world will have 9 billion people by 2050. If you still want growth and prosperity, do you keep on the model you have now? It’s immoral.”
via Current economic growth model is ‘immoral’, says John Prescott | Environment | guardian.co.uk.
Public Option Not Vital to Health Reform, Teamsters’ Hoffa Says
OPS: So the Teamsters have been bought off?
Public Option Not Vital to Health Reform, Teamsters’ Hoffa Says
(Bloomberg) — Teamsters President James Hoffa said dropping the so-called public option wouldn’t be a “deal killer” for health-care legislation, signaling a split among leaders of unions that are a core constituency of President Barack Obama.
“We’ve got to find out what’s doable,” Hoffa, head of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt,” which airs today. “I think it’s important to get something done this time and declare a victory.”
Hoffa’s position adds to debate among Obama supporters over how best to accomplish an overhaul of the U.S. health-care system, the president’s top domestic priority. Richard Trumka, who takes over as president of the 11 million-member AFL-CIO this month, said Sept. 1 that a government-run insurance program known as the public option is an “absolute must.
via Public Option Not Vital to Health Reform, Teamsters’ Hoffa Says – Bloomberg.com.
Secrets of Alleged Oil Price Manipulation Exposed
Secrets of Alleged Oil Price Manipulation Exposed – - – CNBC.com
Its superfast, supersecret oil trading software was called the Hammer.
And if the Commodity Futures Trading Commission is right, the name fit well with an intricate scheme that allowed commodity traders in Chicago working for Optiver, a little-known company based in Amsterdam, to put their orders first in line and subtly manipulate the price of oil to the company’s advantage.
Transcripts and taped conversations of actions that took place in 2007, included in the commission’s case, reveal the secretive workings of high-frequency trading, a fast-growing Wall Street business that is suddenly drawing scrutiny in Washington. Critics say this high-speed form of computerized trading, which is used in a wide range of financial markets, enables its practitioners to profit at other investors’ expense.
Traders in the Chicago office of Optiver openly talked among themselves of “whacking” and “bullying up” the price of oil. But when called to account by officials of the New York Mercantile Exchange, they described their actions as just “providing liquidity.”
via Secrets of Alleged Oil Price Manipulation Exposed – Markets * US * News * Story – CNBC.com.
Faster troop withdrawal may save $1 trillion
Faster troop withdrawal may save $1 trillion
By Rick Maze - - - Army Times
A speedier withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and Afghanistan would shave $1.1 trillion off the budget in the next decade, a new congressional budget projection says.
That would be a sizeable cut in defense-related spending from 2010 through 2019, which the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates at $7.4 trillion.
The budget forecast, issued as Congress is about to return from a summer break and confront questions about budget priorities and deficit spending, says defense costs are uncertain because budget analysts cannot predict the number of deployed troops and the pace of operations.
The $7.4 trillion price tag is based on the number of deployed troops remaining at about 210,000, but looks at two scenarios for reductions:
• A sharp reduction in troops over three years, resulting in $1.1 trillion in savings. Under this projection, the number of deployed troops falls to 160,000 in 2010; to 100,000 in 2011; to 35,000 in 2012 and to 30,000 from 2013 to 2019.
via Faster troop withdrawal may save $1 trillion – Army News, news from Iraq, – Army Times.
The looming political war over Afghanistan
The looming political war over Afghanistan
- Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com
There was a time, not all that long ago, when the U.S. pretended that it viewed war only as a “last resort,” something to be used only when absolutely necessary to defend the country against imminent threats. In reality, at least since the creation of the National Security State in the wake of World War II, war for the U.S. has been everything but a “last resort.” Constant war has been the normal state of affairs. In the 64 years since the end of WWII, we have started and fought far more wars and invaded and bombed more countries than any other nation in the world — not even counting the numerous wars fought by our clients and proxies. Those are just facts. History will have no choice but to view the U.S. — particularly in its late imperial stages — as a war-fighting state.
But at least we paid lip service to (even while often violating) the notion that wars should be waged only when absolutely imperative to defending the nation against imminent threats. We largely don’t even bother to do that any more. Consider today’s defense of the war in Afghanistan from the war-loving Washington Post Editorial Page. Here’s their argument for why we should continue to wage war there:
via The looming political war over Afghanistan – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com.
Saudi Prince calls for US ‘reality check’
Saudi Prince calls for US ‘reality check’ - By Upstream staff
The US has no alternative to oil to meet its massive energy needs and should recognise its energy interdependence with the Middle East, Saudi Arabia’s Prince Turki al-Faisal wrote in an article today.
US President Barack Obama has been pushing to boost green energy which cuts emissions of heat-trapping gases and reduces the use of fossil fuels.
In his election campaign, Obama raised some potentially disturbing issues for the Saudis, such as ending dependence on Middle Eastern oil.
In the article translated into Italian and published by Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, Turki said energy independence was an unrealistic, groundless and harmful concept which was likely to re-emerge once economic recovery pushed oil prices up, reported Reuters.
via Saudi Prince calls for US ‘reality check’ – Upstreamonline.
Bill Moyers Journal: Campaign Finance and the Constitution
OPS: This subject is even more important than Health Care
Campaign Finance and the Constitution
by: Bill Moyers Journal, t r u t h o u t |
Floyd Abrams believes corporations and unions have the same right to free speech as individuals. (Photo: David Shankbone)
Airtime: Friday, September 4, 2009, at 9:00 PM (EST) on PBS (check local listings here).
Next week, the Supreme Court reconvenes early for a special hearing on the constitutionality of campaign finance limits for corporations and unions. To hear the arguments, Bill Moyers sits down with Trevor Potter, president and general counsel of The Campaign Legal Center and a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, and Floyd Abrams, a partner and member of the executive committee at Cahill, Gordon and Reindel. Potter has defended McCain-Feingold in the lower and Supreme Courts, and served as general counsel to Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaigns in 2000 and 2008. Abrams is a liberal litigator, who has defended the First Amendment in several high profile cases, and contends that corporations and unions have the same right to free speech as individuals.
via t r u t h o u t | Campaign Finance and the Constitution.
U.N. chief: Rapid progress needed on climate
‘We are heading towards an abyss’
U.N. chief tells 150 governments that time running out on climate change
GENEVA – U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon told a meeting of some 150 governments on Thursday that time is running out for a new climate deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The Copenhagen talks in December are looming and little real negotiating time is left “to resolve some of the most complex issues,” the U.N. secretary general told the World Climate Conference. “We need rapid progress.”
Only limited progress in the climate talks has been made for the meeting to hammer out a new accord to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on reducing the gases blamed for global warming.
via U.N. chief: Rapid progress needed on climate – Green.
Obama Aides Aim to Simplify and Scale Back Health Bills
Obama Aides Aim to Simplify and Scale Back Health Bills - – NYTimes.com
President Obama plans to address a joint session of Congress next week in an effort to rally support for health care legislation as White House officials look for ways to simplify and scale back the major Democratic bills, lower the cost and drop contentious but nonessential elements.
Administration officials said Wednesday that Mr. Obama would be more specific than he has been to date about what he wants included in the plan. Doing so amounts to an acknowledgment that the president’s prior tactic of laying out broad principles and leaving Congress to fill in the details was no longer working and that Mr. Obama needed to become more personally involved in shaping the outcome.
But the officials said Mr. Obama was unlikely to unveil a detailed legislative plan of his own. And they insisted that Mr. Obama had not given up on the provision that has attracted the most fire from the right, a proposal for a government-run competitor to private insurers, although many Democrats say the proposal may eventually be jettisoned.
via Obama Aides Aim to Simplify and Scale Back Health Bills – NYTimes.com.
The Virtues of Deglobalization
The Virtues of Deglobalization
The current global downturn, the worst since the Great Depression 70 years ago, pounded the last nail into the coffin of globalization. Already beleaguered by evidence that showed global poverty and inequality increasing, even as most poor countries experienced little or no economic growth, globalization has been terminally discredited in the last two years. As the much-heralded process of financial and trade interdependence went into reverse, it became the transmission belt not of prosperity but of economic crisis and collapse.
End of an Era
In their responses to the current economic crisis, governments paid lip service to global coordination but propelled separate stimulus programs meant to rev up national markets. In so doing, governments quietly shelved export-oriented growth, long the driver of many economies, though paid the usual nostrums to advancing trade liberalization as a means of countering the global downturn by completing the Doha Round of trade negotiations under the World Trade Organization. There is increasing acknowledgment that there will be no returning to a world centrally dependent on free-spending American consumers, since many are bankrupt and nobody has taken their place.
Moreover, whether agreed on internationally or unilaterally set up by national governments, a whole raft of restrictions will almost certainly be imposed on finance capital, the untrammeled mobility of which has been the cutting edge of the current crisis.
via Foreign Policy In Focus | The Virtues of Deglobalization.
The Anguish Of Unemployment
The Anguish Of Unemployment
A new survey of unemployed Americans quantifies the enormous psychological trauma inflicted on laid-off workers by the recession — but the pain comes through most clearly in the comments of the unemployed themselves.
“The lack of income and loss of health benefits hurts greatly, but losing the ability to provide for my wife and myself is killing me emotionally,” wrote one respondent to the survey, which was conducted by the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University.
“Everything I have built up over the past 15 years of my life is being chipped away,” wrote another.
“It really gives you a feel for the depth of the emotion and the suffering people are going through,” said survey co-author Cliff Zukin, explaining why he included the raw comments in the report.
via The Anguish Of Unemployment.
The Case of the Biodevastation 7
The Case of the Biodevastation 7
What the Police Won’t Apologize For
By DON FITZ
In early September, St. Louis police will send an apology for their illegal arrest of biodiversity activists. Be assured that it will not mention their role in destroying public dialogue on dangers of genetically contaminated food.
On August 24, 2009, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Eastern Missouri announced that the St. Louis Board of Police Commissioners would pay $13,500 to each of four anti-genetic engineering activists for violating their first and fourth amendment rights and would apologize to them for police actions in May, 2003. [1] That was when several hundred people gathered to protest the World Agricultural Forum [WAF] and hold the 7th Biodevastation Gathering to expose the racist use of genetic engineering in agriculture.
But the letter of apology is highly unlikely to address the most serious aspects of the repression. Do not expect the letter to say anything about helping to consolidate control of world agriculture and throwing 1 billion people off of small farms. Don’t look for the letter to mention the role of police in attempts to force genetically contaminated food on Africans with immuno-compromised health. And don’t be surprised if the letter contains not a word about St. Louis police entering into a conspiracy with Monsanto, the FBI and corporate media to eliminate public discussion of the potential threats of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
via Don Fitz: What the Police Won’t Apologize For.
What Obama Must Demand from Congress on Health Care
What Obama Must Demand from Congress on Health Care
Robert Reich 
Congress returns next week to one of the fiercest and most important debates in recent memory — whether and to what extent the nation will provide health care to all Americans, and how we will reign in the soaring costs of health care overall. But do not expect unusual courage from this Congress in standing up to demagogic lies and money-toting lobbyists. An unusually large portion is facing close races in 2010, both in primaries and in the general election. Republicans have many primary challenges from the right. A record number of Democrats, who took over Congress in 2006, hail from traditionally Republican or swing states and districts.
In order to get anything meaningful through this session of Congress, then, the President will have to give congressional Democrats far more leadership and more cover. Doing so is harder now than before the recess, when he was still basking in the afterglow of a honeymoon and 60 percent favorabilities.Yet it’s not too late. Addressing a joint session of Congress next Wednesday is a good idea but Obama can’t rely solely on his exceptional rhetorical skills. He’ll need to twist arms, cajole, force recalcitrant members to join him, threaten retribution if they don’t come along.
Most importantly, he’ll need to be specific about what he wants — especially about three things. I hope says the following next Wednesday, and makes clear to individual members that he means business.
via Robert Reich’s Blog: What Obama Must Demand from Congress on Health Care.
U.S. ranks 28th in Internet speed among industrialized nations, study finds
U.S. ranks 28th in Internet speed among industrialized nations, study finds – – chicagotribune.com
Delaware has fastest connection in the country, according to telecom union
When it comes to Internet speed, the U.S. remains far down the ladder of industrialized nations, ranking 28th behind leaders South Korea, Japan, Sweden and Holland, according to a study by a labor union for telecommunications workers.
Using data gathered from Speed Matters, a site that promotes greater Internet speeds, the Communications Workers of America compiled a list of broadband speeds in U.S. states and territories and came up with the average speed for the nation — 5.1 megabits per second. That’s a quarter of South Korea’s 20.4 megabits and about a third of Japan’s 15.8 megabits.
The study also pointed to the relatively slow rate at which the average U.S. broadband speed rose in recent years, gaining only 1.6 megabits since May 2007. That was a much slower increase than was seen in the U.S. states with the fastest speeds.
California, arguably the nation’s most high-tech-friendly state, ranked only 11th among the states, well behind the national leaders. Still, the state’s 6.6 megabits average put it ahead of where it was two years ago, when it ranked 22nd among states, with barely more than 3 megabits.
via U.S. ranks 28th in Internet speed among industrialized nations, study finds — chicagotribune.com.
Questions Arise As FDIC Fails To Disclose Key Details On Bidders For Failed Banks
Questions Arise As FDIC Fails To Disclose Key Details On Bidders For Failed Banks
The federal agency charged with resolving failed banks and selling their assets is hiding key details about the transactions.
The identities of losing bidders and the prices they’ve offered for failed bank assets are some of the details currently not being fully disclosed. For decades, this information was publicly available. But this year the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation abruptly decided to limit the flow of information.
It couldn’t have come at a worse time. In addition to the bailout of financial companies like Citigroup, AIG and Bank of America, the federal government is on the hook for another $80 billion through a little-reported FDIC program designed to encourage private investors to buy failed banks and their assets.
via Questions Arise As FDIC Fails To Disclose Key Details On Bidders For Failed Banks.
Who’s Feeling the Relief ?
Who’s Feeling the Relief – Dustin Ensinger – economyincisis.org
Through the end of August, the government has made $62.5 billion in tax breaks available, however, there is no consensus on how well those tax credits have worked.
Through the end of August, the government has made $62.5 billion in tax breaks available through the $787 billion stimulus package, however, there is no consensus on how well those tax credits have worked to stimulate the economy, according to CNNMoney.com.
Overall, the stimulus plan consisted of $288 billion in tax credits for individuals, the poor and businesses to stimulate the economy and spend their way out of recession.
One of the major tax credits was the $400 per person Making Work Pay tax credit targeted at working individuals. Instead of offering the tax credit up in one lump sum, as the Bush administration did with its stimulus package, the Obama administration is allocating the money a little at a time, $15 per paycheck for most individuals.
The belief is that spreading the funds out over time will likely spur more economic activity rather than delivering the tax credits in one lump sum, however, others see things differently. According to critics, the vast majority of the tax credits are ending up in people’s bank accounts rather than in stores cash registers.
The fact that consumer spending still fell in the first quarter of the year despite the tax credits demonstrates the futility of it.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Rethinking Food Production For A World Of Eight Billion
Rethinking Food Production For A World Of Eight Billion - Lester Brown, TreeHugger
How on Earth Can We Feed 8 Billion People? How China ended its dependence on food aid, almost overnight, and become the world’s third largest food aid donor.
In April 2005, the World Food Programme and the Chinese government jointly announced that food aid shipments to China would stop at the end of the year. For a country where a generation ago hundreds of millions of people were chronically hungry, this was a landmark achievement. Not only has China ended its dependence on food aid, but almost overnight it has become the world’s third largest food aid donor.
The key to China’s success was the economic reforms in 1978 that dismantled its system of agricultural collectives, known as production teams, and replaced them with family farms. In each village, the land was allocated among families, giving them long-term leases on their piece of land. The move harnessed the energy and ingenuity of China’s rural population, raising the grain harvest by half from 1977 to 1986. With its fast-expanding economy raising incomes, with population growth slowing, and with the grain harvest climbing, China eradicated most of its hunger in less than a decade—in fact, it eradicated more hunger in a shorter period of time than any country in history.
As we note at Earth Policy Institute, while hunger has been disappearing in China, it has been spreading throughout much of the developing world, notably sub-Saharan Africa and parts of the Indian subcontinent. As a result, the number of people in developing countries who are hungry has increased from a recent historical low of 800 million in 1996 to over 1 billion today. Part of this recent rise can be attributed to higher food prices and the global economic crisis. In the absence of strong leadership, the number of hungry people in the world will rise even further, with children suffering the most.
via Rethinking Food Production For A World Of Eight Billion : TreeHugger.
Don’t Laugh at Crazy Cheney — He Represents the Dangerous Thinking of Many Powerful Conservatives
Don’t Laugh at Crazy Cheney — He Represents the Dangerous Thinking of Many Powerful Conservatives – By Marie Cocco, Washington Post Writers Group. 
It’s tempting to think of Dick Cheney as a cranky old men stirring up controversy to sell books. But Cheney must not be underestimated.
WASHINGTON — In politics as in physics, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Thus, former Vice President Dick Cheney’s most recent and thoroughly extraordinary public support of torture has produced, with almost mathematical precision, the following chain of events: People who think Cheney is scary in his defense of violating international treaties and U.S. laws, smashing the heads of suspected terrorists against walls, threatening them with rape and electric drills and subjecting them to waterboarding — an ordeal perfected in the torture chambers of the Spanish Inquisition — howled. They believe Cheney is completely gonzo.
As soon as this reaction to his imperious appearance on Fox News settled in, the equal and opposite reaction was heard: Cheney is completely right. And just trotting him out to promote his forthcoming memoir — “It is going to be a great book,” Cheney helpfully tells us — isn’t enough. Why not have him run for president?
This, too, inspires a reaction: Go ahead. Make my day. The rhetorical Cheney-for-president boomlet was touched off by The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto, who mused that the 2012 campaign might well be waged on national security issues — assuming, as it is reasonable to assume — that something will put President Barack Obama on the defensive over foreign policy. And if that comes to pass, Taranto speculated, who better than Dick Cheney to represent the Republicans? Indeed, few can differentiate themselves from George W. Bush by making the former president appear to be a prudent moderate. Cheney is expert at it.
How Farm-Raised Salmon Are Turning Our Oceans Into Dangerous and Polluted Feedlots
How Farm-Raised Salmon Are Turning Our Oceans Into Dangerous and Polluted Feedlots - By Tara Lohan, AlterNet. 
“Farm-raised salmon” sounds nice and sustainable, but they’ve become harbingers of disease, contaminating the oceans with antibiotics and toxic chemicals.
The fish makes gourmets rejoice. Smoked-salmon quiche, grilled salmon with lime butter sauce, salmon sushi, poached salmon fillets with dill crème fraîche — really the choices with salmon are endless and delicious.
The omega-3-fatty-acid-rich fish is also coveted for its health benefits. And, if you’re looking for protein, eating salmon seems a great alternative to industrial-produced meat in the U.S. But somehow this dream fish has become a nightmare. As it turns out, farmed salmon comes with its own set of environmental and health issues — threatening wild salmon populations, becoming harbingers of disease, and contaminating the oceans with antibiotics and toxic chemicals. And if you’re eating salmon in the U.S., the chances are very good that it’s farm raised.
Only about 10 percent of salmon on the market in the U.S. is actually wild these days Alex Trent, executive director of the industry group Salmon of the Americas, told the New York Times.
Progressives to Gather at Tides Momentum Conference with Frustration with Obama on Their Minds
Progressives to Gather at Tides Momentum Conference with Frustration with Obama on Their Minds - By Don Hazen, AlterNet.
We are in a political crisis moment. The Tides Foundation is bringing together the country’s most significant progressives to address our complex political realities.
Our country and our still new president are facing a political crisis moment. Stacked against us are fundamental issues – health care, climate change, war, and a still-floundering economy. How each and all of these issues are resolved (or not) may well determine the success of Obama’s presidency.
With health reform and the so-called “public option” reportedly on life support (although some activists strongly disagree with that prognosis), and the increasingly unpopular Afghanistan war on the verge of yet another escalation, many progressives and Democrats are frustrated, angry, or simply scratching their heads in disbelief. The Obama they thought they elected is not meeting their expectations.
Although Obama still has relatively high numbers among Democrats, they appear to be dropping with some speed. A Zogby interactive poll showed a dip of 13% in Obama’s approval ratings in the last month. Republicans’ and Independents’ assessments remain stable.
Is the Taliban on the U.S. Gov. Payroll? -
Probe: US funding contractors to pay Taliban for protection – from itself ? - World Watch – CBS News
A portion of American taxpayer dollars slated for development projects in Afghanistan is alleged to end up in the hands of the Taliban, the GlobalPost reports. The United States Agency for International Development is investigating if its funds are being used by contractors to pay the Taliban for protection – from itself.
Payoffs to the Taliban are a widely known practice in Afghanistan, according to a report by GlobalPost last month. When the money is not paid, they wreak havoc in the area, blowing up bridges, kidnapping contractors and bringing projects to a halt.
One source told the GlobalPost that the Taliban takes as much as 20% of development aid awarded to contractors. An embassy worker in Kabul described the arrangement as “organized crime.”
Is the Taliban on the U.S. Gov. Payroll? – World Watch – CBS News.
The end of monster sushi / Soon, no more giant rainbow rolls and inflated unagi. Do you really care?
The end of monster sushi 
Soon, no more giant rainbow rolls and inflated unagi. Do you really care?
That’s what they say, the people in the know about such things, the people who track the various crashing fish stocks in the abused and plastic-swarmed oceans of the world. These are the people who also have firsthand knowledge about what modest steps are being taken to remedy it all and sadly noting how it’s not nearly enough because the large game fish are disappearing, the fishing industry is still hugely under-regulated and no one’s really paying much attention because, well, we’ve got a few hundred other major problems on deck at the moment. Then again, don’t we always?
It won’t be long now, they say, until we simply won’t have any of the essential, large predator fish left — all those salmon, tuna, swordfish, Atlantic halibut, even on down to wild shrimp and eel, et al — all those once-plentiful, tasty staples that we’ve been wolfing down like they were so many pizza logs and Taco Supremes to feed America’s increasingly voracious appetite for giant, cheap nigiri and sushi rolls the size of a child’s arm.
Do you already know? We are eating way too much of it. We are still overfishing the oceans, depleting stocks like they were Jell-O shots at an AA convention, barely stopping for breath, despite how sushi was never meant to be a fast food, never meant to be added to the list of mass-quantity protein we can cram into the cooler alongside the turkey sandwiches and the pasta salad and the Oreos. Nice while it lasted? Well, sort of.
via The end of monster sushi / Soon, no more giant rainbow rolls and inflated unagi. Do you really care?.
Antibodies found that prevent HIV from causing severe AIDS
Antibodies found that prevent HIV from causing severe AIDS - — latimes.com
Scientists were able to isolate two antibodies responsible for resistance to the disease in an African patient. The discovery could be key to the development of a vaccine.
After nearly two decades of futile searching for a vaccine against the AIDS virus, researchers are reporting the tantalizing discovery of antibodies that can prevent the virus from multiplying in the body and producing severe disease.
They do not have a vaccine yet, but they may well have a road map toward the production of one.
A team based at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla reports today in the journal Science that they have isolated two so-called broadly neutralizing antibodies that can block the action of many strains of HIV, the virus responsible for AIDS.
Crucial to the discovery is the fact that the antibodies target a portion of HIV that researchers had not considered in their search for a vaccine. Moreover, the target is a relatively stable portion of the virus that does not participate in the extensive mutations that have made HIV able to escape from antiviral drugs and previous experimental vaccines.
via Antibodies found that prevent HIV from causing severe AIDS — latimes.com.
The Op-Ed No One Wanted
The Op-Ed No One Wanted - Columbia Journalism Review
Canada’s corpse-strewn landscape?
By now, how many Americans haven’t heard of death panels, and the Big Bad Government interfering with end-of-life decisions that would send granny to the gallows? And who doesn’t know about Canada’s “socialized” medicine where people are dying on the streets because that country “rations” care? To paraphrase Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert, imagine all those corpses strewn across the Canadian tundra. But granny actually lives longer in Canada than in the U.S., according to some interesting stats put together by Rutgers research professor Louise Russell, who is familiar to Campaign Desk readers for revealing how, contrary to popular belief, preventive care does not save money.
In an op-ed which was turned down by every newspaper to which it was submitted—The New York Times, USA Today, The Boston Globe, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Los Angeles Times—Russell looked at different age groups among the elderly populations in both countries, and found that death rates for the elderly are lower in Canada than in the U.S. Russell broke down different age groups among the elderly and examined the number of deaths per thousand among people between the ages of sixty-five and sixty-nine; seventy and seventy-four; seventy-five and seventy-nine; eighty and eighty-four. In each of those groups, the death rates per thousand were lower in Canada than in America.
For instance, among people age seventy to seventy-four there were twenty-six deaths per 1000 people in the U.S. compared to twenty-one per 1000 in Canada. Between age eighty and eighty-four, Russell found sixty-five American deaths per 1000 compared to fifty-nine deaths per 1000 Canadians. For people eighty-five and older, rates were virtually the same. Everyone eventually dies.
via The Op-Ed No One Wanted : CJR.
The Toxic Pathology of Right Wing Fascism and the Failed Communications Strategy of the White House
The Toxic Pathology of Right Wing Fascism and the Failed Communications Strategy of the White House
by mark karlin * EditorBlog | BuzzFlash.org
For nearly 10 years, BuzzFlash has focused on how Americans generally support progressive policies if asked about them individually, but are swayed against them by right wing media propaganda campaigns.
This has been the lesson since Nixon, and it has become more virulent over the years.
Now we are faced with a coordinated incendiary attack on President Barack Obama as an individual and beneficial public policies such as healthcare reform and climate control the likes of which are terrifying to a democracy.
What is occurring is the same model: corporations who control the mainstream media and control the majority of elected officials on Capitol Hill use facistic “coded” misinformation to rally a thunderously loud confused base to bollix up any legislation that would diminish their profits or power to control what happens in D.C.
The marriage of big corporations and government is fascism, and propaganda is what sanctifies the marriage and keeps it from ending up in a divorce.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi: Public Option Best Way to Control Costs, Promote Competition
Speaker Nancy Pelosi: Public Option Best Way to Control Costs, Promote Competition
BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT
Washington, D.C. – Speaker Nancy Pelosi released the following statement on health insurance reform legislation pending before Congress:
“Any real change requires the inclusion of a strong public option to promote competition and bring down costs. If a vigorous public option is not included, it would be a major victory for the health insurance industry. [Bolded by BuzzFlash]
“President Obama has said that a public option will keep the insurance companies honest. If someone has a better idea for promoting competition and reducing health care costs, they should put it on the table. But for the past month, opponents of health insurance reform have demonstrated that they are afraid of the facts. They have only offered distortions, distractions and misrepresentations to try to kill this historic legislation.
“A bill without a strong public option will not pass the House. Eliminating the public option would be a major victory for the insurance companies who have rationed care, increased premiums and denied coverage.”
via Speaker Nancy Pelosi: Public Option Best Way to Control Costs, Promote Competition | BuzzFlash.org.
Ike’s Other Warning
Ike’s Other Warning – - NYTimes.com
By MAX BLUMENTHAL 
IN this summer of town hall disruptions and birth-certificate controversies, a summer when it seemed as if the Republican Party had been captured by its extremist wing, it is worth recalling a now-obscure letter from President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Although Eisenhower is commonly remembered for a farewell address that raised concerns about the “military-industrial complex,” his letter offers an equally important — and relevant — warning: to beware the danger posed by those seeking freedom from the “mental stress and burden” of democracy.
via Op-Ed Contributor – Ike’s Other Warning – NYTimes.com.
EPA to put the Chesapeake Bay on a ‘pollution diet’
EPA to put the Chesapeake Bay on a ‘pollution diet’
The EPA is putting the Chesapeake Bay and its waterways on a strict “pollution diet,” says the agency, which plans to work with state partners to set restrictions and monitor progress.
The EPA will use a regulatory tool of the federal Clean Water Act called total maximum daily load (TMDL) to help ensure the timely removal of excess nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment choking the bay.
Hopefully, the new plan will prove more aggressive than the yo-yo diet the bay has been on for more than 20 years.
Despite government cleanup efforts over this long period, monitoring data shows that the Chesapeake Bay and its rivers still have “poor water quality, degraded habitats, and low populations of many species of fish and shellfish,” according to the EPA’s Chesapeake Bay Program. Murky water and algae blooms block sunlight and create low levels of underwater oxygen or “dead zones” for aquatic life such as fish, crabs and oyster.
via EPA to put the Chesapeake Bay on a ‘pollution diet’.
We’re all mutants, say scientists
OPS: Well that explains a lot!
We’re all mutants, say scientists - BBC NEWS |
Each of us has at least 100 new mutations in our DNA, according to research published in the journal Current Biology.
Scientists have been trying to get an accurate estimate of the mutation rate for over 70 years.
However, only now has it been possible to get a reliable estimate, thanks to “next generation” technology for genetic sequencing.
The findings may lead to new treatments and insights into our evolution.
In 1935, one of the founders of modern genetics, JBS Haldane, studied a group of men with the blood disease haemophilia. He speculated that there would be about 150 new mutations in each of us.
Others have since looked at DNA in chimpanzees to try to produce general estimates for humans
via BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | We’re all mutants, say scientists.
Men lose their minds speaking to pretty women
Men lose their minds speaking to pretty women - - Telegraph
Talking to an attractive woman really can make a man lose his mind, according to a new study.
The research shows men who spend even a few minutes in the company of an attractive woman perform less well in tests designed to measure brain function than those who chat to someone they do not find attractive.
Researchers who carried out the study, published in the Journal of Experimental and Social Psychology, think the reason may be that men use up so much of their brain function or ‘cognitive resources’ trying to impress beautiful women, they have little left for other tasks.
The findings have implications for the performance of men who flirt with women in the workplace, or even exam results in mixed-sex schools.
Women, however, were not affected by chatting to a handsome man.
This may be simply because men are programmed by evolution to think more about mating opportunities.
Psychologists at Radboud University in The Netherlands carried out the study after one of them was so struck on impressing an attractive woman he had never met before, that he could not remember his address when she asked him where he lived.
via Men lose their minds speaking to pretty women – Telegraph.
Almost 90 percent in US believe economy in recession: poll
Almost 90 percent in US believe economy in recession: poll – The Raw Story |
Almost nine in 10 Americans believe the US economy is still mired in recession, a new CNN poll released Thursday found.
Fully 87 percent of those questioned in the CNN survey said they believe the United States was in a serious, moderate or mild recession.
Public perceptions about the economy’s wellbeing are very important, particularly in the United States where two-thirds of economic activity is consumer spending
.
“Economists may be speculating that the recession is over, but don’t tell that to the American public,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.
“The good news — if you can call it good news — is that the number who say things are going badly has been dropping steadily since last fall — from an all time high of 83 percent in November to 77 percent in April and 69 percent now,” Holland added.
via The Raw Story | Almost 90 percent in US believe economy in recession: poll.
US Treasury eases cash, travel restrictions on Cuba
US Treasury eases cash, travel restrictions on Cuba – The Raw Story |
The US Treasury Thursday eased restrictions on travel and money transfers to Cuba, five months after President Barack Obama announced the measures in a bid to improve ties with the communist island.
The changes to Treasury rules, which take effect immediately, focus on visits by Cubans living in the United States to the island, remittances by Cuban-Americans to their relatives, and telecommunications.
The 47-year-old US economic embargo on Cuba however remains.
The goal is to “promote greater contact between separated family members in the United States and Cuba” and also to “increase the flow of remittances and information to the Cuban people,” the Treasury said.
via The Raw Story | US Treasury eases cash, travel restrictions on Cuba.
House liberals demand public option in letter to Obama
House liberals demand public option in letter to Obama
Congressmembers Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) and Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) sent a letter Thursday to the White House, demanding that health insurance reforms include a public option.
The Democrats are both co-chairs of the House Progressive Caucus, which represents a sector of the U.S. electorate widely viewed as the the base of President Barack Obama’s support. – Raw Story »
In the letter, the Democrats demanded an optional public health insurance policy and warned they would withhold support of any health bill that does not include it.
“Any bill that does not provide, at a minimum, a public option built on the Medicare provider system and with reimbursement based on Medicare rates-not negotiated rates-is unacceptable,” they wrote. “A plan with negotiated rates would ensure higher costs for the public plan, and would do nothing to achieve the goal ofproviding choice and competition to keep rates down. The public plan with set rates saves $75 billion, which could be lost ifrates are negotiated with providers. Further, this public option must be available immediately and must not be contingent upon any trigger.”
They also sought to meet with President Obama to affirm their urges for public health care.
The full letter is copied below.
via Raw Story » House liberals demand public option in letter to Obama.
DUI attorney challenges laws prohibiting driving while stoned
Is driving while under the influence of THC, one of marijuana’s – Raw Story »
active ingredients, actually dangerous? One prominent California DUI attorney believes it is not nearly as dangerous as driving drunk and has issued a challenge to laws that punish marijuana users who get behind the wheel.
San Diego defense attorney Lawrence Taylor, considered “The Dean of DUI Attorneys,” according to a release by his firm, is apparently arguing that DUI laws are unfair because they do not allow consideration for the varying degrees of inebriation caused by drugs of abuse.
Drivers convicted of marijuana intoxication are usually sentenced only after authorities have taken a blood sample. However that blood sample, he notes, only measures the body’s metabolism of marijuana’s compounds, not the actual level of impairment.
via Raw Story » DUI attorney challenges laws prohibiting driving while stoned.
McConnell: Zero Republicans Support EFCA ‘Because We Have Very Enlightened Management In This Country’
McConnell: Zero Republicans Support EFCA ‘Because We Have Very Enlightened Management In This Country’ – Think Progress »
Yesterday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) promised that no Republicans will vote for the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), should it come to the Senate floor. In order for the bill to pass “the Democratic members will have to do it,” he said.
In a speech before the business organization Commerce Lexington, McConnell explained that the reason for such uncompromising opposition is that workers don’t actually want to join unions due to the “very enlightened management in this country now”:
McConnell said the AFL-CIO wants the measure approved because “private sector union membership has declined from a high of 35 percent in the 1950s to 7.5 percent now.” That has happened “because we have very enlightened management in this country now, treating employees better and employees have decided they don’t want to pay the dues.”
Inhofe: ‘There has never been a case of torture’ at Guantanamo Bay.
Inhofe: ‘There has never been a case of torture’ at Guantanamo Bay. - Think Progress »
Yesterday, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) held a town hall meeting with his constituents in Grove, Oklahoma, where he unleashed a tirade of hyperbolic remarks against Obama administration policies. At one point he even suggested that Obama is “obsessed” with releasing terrorists into the United States, and claimed that there has “never been a case of torture” at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp:
He is also alarmed, he said, by the proposed closing of the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Obama administration wants to shutter the camp because of its association with torture.
Inhofe said: “There has never been a case of torture there. The people there are treated better than in the federal prisons.”
He continued, “I don’t know why President Obama is obsessed with turning terrorists loose in America.”
via Think Progress » Inhofe: ‘There has never been a case of torture’ at Guantanamo Bay..
Inhofe: ‘There has never been a case of torture’ at Guantanamo Bay.
Inhofe: ‘There has never been a case of torture’ at Guantanamo Bay. - Think Progress »
Yesterday, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) held a town hall meeting with his constituents in Grove, Oklahoma, where he unleashed a tirade of hyperbolic remarks against Obama administration policies. At one point he even suggested that Obama is “obsessed” with releasing terrorists into the United States, and claimed that there has “never been a case of torture” at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp:
He is also alarmed, he said, by the proposed closing of the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Obama administration wants to shutter the camp because of its association with torture.
Inhofe said: “There has never been a case of torture there. The people there are treated better than in the federal prisons.”
He continued, “I don’t know why President Obama is obsessed with turning terrorists loose in America.”
via Think Progress » Inhofe: ‘There has never been a case of torture’ at Guantanamo Bay..
Scarborough rips conservatives for seeking ratings by scaremongering about Obama’s education speech.
OPS: Moron Joe as the voice of reason – holy crap
Scarborough rips conservatives for seeking ratings by scaremongering about Obama’s education speech.
Earlier today, ThinkProgress noted that conservatives are freaking out over President Obama’s upcoming speech to schoolchildren about “persisting and succeeding in school,” claiming that it is actually aimed at political indoctrination. On MSNBC’s Morning Joe today, host Joe Scarborough ripped into the hyperventilating conservatives. “Seriously, why don’t we want the president of the United States, any president of the United States, delivering the message to kids: work hard, stay in school, succeed,” said Scarborough, adding, “get your ratings if you want, you’re just screwing your political party.” Watch it:
McCain Endorses Claim That Obama Finds Seniors ‘Expendable’: ‘I’ve Never Heard It More Eloquently Put’
McCain Endorses Claim That Obama Finds Seniors ‘Expendable’: ‘I’ve Never Heard It More Eloquently Put’ - Think Progress »
EDITOR’S NOTE: Over the past month, ThinkProgress has traveled to town hall events across the country to report what we’re seeing on the ground. This is our fifth eyewitness report.
This past Tuesday, Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and John McCain (R-AZ) took their nationwide health care road show to Florida, where they teamed up with Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL) to participate in a closed-door town hall event at the Palmetto General Hospital in Hialeah. ThinkProgress attended the forum.
During the question-and-answer session, Jim Dolan, president of the Florida Medical Association, expressed his anger with the American Medical Association for supporting President Obama’s health care plan. We “repudiate that action on their part,” Dolan said, speaking for his Florida chapter.
California Attorney General Called To Investigate Insurance Companies’ Anti-Health Reform Advocacy
California Attorney General Called To Investigate Insurance Companies’ Anti-Health Reform Advocacy - Think Progress »
consumerwatchdog2 The Los Angeles Times reported today that the California-based Consumer Watchdog has submitted a letter to Attorney General Jerry Brown calling for an investigation of insurance giants Wellpoint and United HealthCare (UHC). The complaint comes in response to the insurance companies’ practice of actively encouraging employees to engage in anti-health care reform political activity. According to Consumer Watchdog, “while coercive communications with employees may be legal, if abhorrent, in most states, California’s Labor Code appears to directly prohibit them.”
UHC was exposed last month for creating a call center that directed employees to anti-health reform protests. More recently, Wellpoint launched a “grassroots Web site” urging employees to “make [their] voice heard” by contacting Congress in opposition to health reform. It appears that these tactics may have been a violation of California law. According to the watchdog organization’s letter, UnitedHealthCare’s anti-reform hotline and Wellpoint’s astroturf lobbying website may violate California laws meant to prevent employers from influencing the political activity of its employees.
The accusations against UHC and Wellpoint comes on the heels of a string of ethically questionable moves by healthcare and energy giants to fight reform:
E.J. Dionne Jr. – Extremism in Media’s Glare – washingtonpost.com
The Real Town Hall Story
By E.J. Dionne Jr.
Health-care reform is said to be in trouble partly because of those raucous August town-hall meetings in which Democratic members of Congress were besieged by shouters opposed to change.
But what if our media-created impression of the meetings is wrong? What if the highly publicized screamers represented only a fraction of public opinion? What if most of the town halls were populated by citizens who respectfully but firmly expressed a mixture of support, concern and doubt?
There is an overwhelming case that the electronic media went out of their way to cover the noise and ignored the calmer (and from television’s point of view “boring”) encounters between elected representatives and their constituents.
via E.J. Dionne Jr. – Extremism in Media’s Glare – washingtonpost.com.
Banks fight plan to regulate derivatives
Banks fight plan to regulate derivatives - | The Australian
WALL Street is suiting up for a battle to protect one of its richest fiefdoms — the $US592 trillion ($709 trillion) over-the-counter derivatives market that is facing the biggest overhaul since its creation 30 years ago.
Five US commercial banks, including JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs Group and Bank of America, are on track to earn more than $US35 billion this year trading unregulated derivatives contracts.
At stake is how much of that business they and other dealers will be able to keep.
“Business models of the larger dealers have such a paucity of opportunities for profit that they have to defend the last great frontier for double-digit, even triple-digit returns,” says Christopher Whalen, managing director of Torrance, California-based Institutional Risk Analytics.
The Washington fight, conducted mostly behind closed doors, has been overshadowed by the noisy debate over healthcare.
That’s fine with investment bankers, who for years quietly wielded their financial and lobbying clout on Capitol Hill to kill efforts to regulate derivatives.
via Banks fight plan to regulate derivatives | The Australian.
All government cost studies: sheltering the homeless is most cost-effective
All government cost studies: sheltering the homeless is most cost-effective
The US Interagency Council on Homelessness has found that all cost-benefit analyses show that paying for the homeless to have minimal housing, food, health care, and job counseling costs less than public costs of their street life. The greatest savings come from decreased emergency room visits, police calls, and court time. What isn’t counted, and significant, is the increase of business in areas where the homeless are vagrants. In addition, these studies show most of these participants find jobs and leave these programs.
As always, please share this with all who say they want to be responsible citizens.
Philip Mangano, former Director of the US Interagency Council on Homelessness, provides an overview of the US and local government’s experience of the costs and benefits:
via All government cost studies: sheltering the homeless is most cost-effective.
All Politics is Local: What Healthcare Reformers Forgot
All Politics is Local: What Healthcare Reformers Forgot – | CommonDreams.org
by Donna Smith
Some old adages survive because they are true. No matter how you deliver the message – email, snail mail, voice mail, text message or old-fashioned word-of-mouth – if you forget to keep it simple and keep it local, your issue or candidate will lose.
The right-wing went into high-wind to scare seniors – a huge voting block – about healthcare reform. And why not? All politics is local.
Tell a senior citizen you are going to raise property taxes for new schools and it won’t matter for even a moment that the money is for their grandkids’ education – those seniors will vote no. Ask any number of local or state candidates for office. Seniors, more than any other voting block, vote their pocketbooks and vote their own immediate well-being.
via All Politics is Local: What Healthcare Reformers Forgot | CommonDreams.org.
How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?
OP:S Answer: They didn’t get it wrong. The Oligarchy they represent has gotten everything it wanted.
How Did Economists Get It So Wrong? – - NYTimes.com
Paul Krugman
I. MISTAKING BEAUTY FOR TRUTH
It’s hard to believe now, but not long ago economists were congratulating themselves over the success of their field. Those successes — or so they believed — were both theoretical and practical, leading to a golden era for the profession. On the theoretical side, they thought that they had resolved their internal disputes. Thus, in a 2008 paper titled “The State of Macro” (that is, macroeconomics, the study of big-picture issues like recessions), Olivier Blanchard of M.I.T., now the chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, declared that “the state of macro is good.” The battles of yesteryear, he said, were over, and there had been a “broad convergence of vision.” And in the real world, economists believed they had things under control: the “central problem of depression-prevention has been solved,” declared Robert Lucas of the University of Chicago in his 2003 presidential address to the American Economic Association. In 2004, Ben Bernanke, a former Princeton professor who is now the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, celebrated the Great Moderation in economic performance over the previous two decades, which he attributed in part to improved economic policy making.
Last year, everything came apart.
via How Did Economists Get It So Wrong? – NYTimes.com.
Mike Whitney: How Bad Will It Get?
The Long Adjustment
How Bad Will It Get?
By MIKE WHITNEY
The U.S. economy is at the beginning of a protracted period of adjustment. The sharp decline in business activity, which began in the summer of 2007, has moderated slightly, but there are few indications that growth will return to pre-crisis levels. Stocks have performed well in the last six months, beating most analysts expectations, but weakness in the underlying economy will continue to crimp demand reducing any chance of a strong rebound. Bankruptcies, delinquencies and defaults are all on the rise, which is pushing down asset prices and increasing unemployment. As joblessness soars, debts pile up, consumer spending slows, and businesses are forced to cut back even further. This is the deflationary spiral Fed chairman Ben Bernanke was hoping to avoid. Surging equities and an impressive “green shoots” public relations campaign have helped to improve consumer confidence, but the hard data conflicts with the optimistic narrative reiterated in the financial media. For the millions of Americans who don’t qualify for government bailouts, things have never been worse.
Kevin Harrington, managing director at Clarium Capital Management LLC, summed up the present economic situation in an interview with Bloomberg News: “If we have a recovery at all, it isn’t sustainable. This is more likely a ski-jump recession, with short-term stimulus creating a bump that will ultimately lead to a more precipitous decline later.”
Reflecting on the Fed’s unwillingness to force banks to report their losses on hard-to-value illiquid assets, Harrington added, “We haven’t fixed the problem. We’ve just slowed down the official recognition of it.”
via Mike Whitney: How Bad Will It Get?.
President Obama’s promises on healthcare
President Obama: Healthcare; you promised. - -- latimes.com
An open letter reminds the president of the major campaign vow that got him into the White House.
am afraid there has been a misunderstanding since that election in 2008, during which 66,882,230 Americans cast their votes for you. Perhaps one of your trusted advisors has given you bum information. Maybe they told you that we voted for you — walked, marched, prayed, fund-raised and knocked on doors for you — because we hoped you would try to reunite the country. Of the total votes cast that long-ago November day, I’m guessing that about 1,575 people wanted you to try to reconcile the toxic bipartisanship that culminated in those Sarah Palin rallies.
The other 66,880,655 of us wanted universal healthcare.
You inherited a country that was in the most desperate shape since the Civil War, or the Depression, and we voted for you to heal the catastrophic wounds Bush inflicted on our country and our world. You said that you were up to that challenge.
We did not vote for you to see if you could get Chuck Grassley or Michael Enzi to date you. The spectacle of you wooing them fills us with horror and even disgust. We recoil as from hot flame at each mention of your new friends. Believe me, I know exactly how painful this can be, how reminiscent of 7th-grade yearning to be popular, because I went through it myself this summer. I did not lower my bar quite as low as you have, but I was sitting on the couch one afternoon, thinking that this adorable guy and I were totally on the same sheet of music — he had given me absolutely every indication that we were — and were moving into the kissing stage. Out of nowhere, I thought to ask him if he liked me in the same way I liked him.
via President Obama’s promises on healthcare — latimes.com.
Health Care That Works
Health Care That Works - – NYTimes.com
Here’s a paradox.
Health care reform may be defeated this year in part because so many Americans believe the government can’t do anything right and fear that a doctor will come to resemble an I.R.S. agent with a scalpel. Yet the part of America’s health care system that consumers like best is the government-run part.
Fifty-six to 60 percent of people in government-run Medicare rate it a 9 or 10 on a 10-point scale. In contrast, only 40 percent of those enrolled in private insurance rank their plans that high.
Multiple surveys back that up. For example, 68 percent of those in Medicare feel that their own interests are the priority, compared with only 48 percent of those enrolled in private insurance.
In truth, despite the deeply ingrained American conviction that government is bumbling when it is not evil, government intervention has been a step up in some areas from the private sector.
via Op-Ed Columnist – Health Care That Works – NYTimes.com.
The Curious Association Of The G-Spot And The Upper Palate
The Curious Association Of The G-Spot And The Upper Palate
I often teach that to find where the G-spot is in a woman, and how it might feel, you can simply put your thumb in your mouth and feel the rougher, ridged area just beyond your teeth, on the top part of your mouth. Beyond that ridged area is the upper palate and halfway between the ridges and the upper palate is the area that is analogous to the G-spot. I find it fascinating that the interior of the mouth seems so close in structure to the yoni (vagina in Sanskrit) and the G-spot area.
The upper palate area is filled with nerve endings. Try putting your little vibrator up there sometime and see how it feels! It’s kind of intense. Obviously suckling and eating creates the evolutionary nerve aspects of the sensitivity of the mouth.
The erotic feeling of sucking, whether it be a lollipop, water bottle or beer or some aspect of the anatomy like a nipple, thumb or lingam (phallus in Sanskrit), was developed during infancy to not only create a sensory experience while eating but to provide intimacy training for the child and mother (or primary care giver). Both the mother and the child produce the ‘bonding’ neuro-hormone Oxytocin during nursing. The accompanying eye gazing that occurs between mother and child trains the baby to seek the intimacy of faces, and specifically the eyes, as it grows older. Interestingly, Oxytocin is also produced during orgasm.
via Suzie Heumann: The Curious Association Of The G-Spot And The Upper Palate.
‘Auto-Tune The News’ Takes On Chuck Grassley Over Health Care Metaphors (VIDEO)
‘Auto-Tune The News’ Takes On Chuck Grassley Over Health Care Metaphors (VIDEO)
Michael and Andrew Gregory are back with their EIGHTH installment of “Auto-Tune the News.” So far they’ve taken on Sean Hannity in a gorilla costume, spiced up climate change speeches by GOPers, and used Arianna Huffington’s serious words on the drug war to make light of their own reckless youths. Now they’ve moved on to mocking the Vice President for his long-winded speeches and highlighting Chuck Grassley’s Senate-floor hilarity.
via ‘Auto-Tune The News’ Takes On Chuck Grassley Over Health Care Metaphors (VIDEO).
Diebold Sells US Voting Machine Unit
Diebold Sells US Voting Machine Unit
Ohio-based ATM maker Diebold Inc. has sold its much-criticized U.S. voting-machine business to a competitor, Election Systems & Software Inc. of Omaha, Neb.
Diebold, based in North Canton, announced the sale of its Allen, Texas-based subsidiary Premier Election Solutions Inc. on Thursday. Diebold will get $5 million plus payments representing 70 percent of collections of the unit’s accounts receivable as of Aug. 31.
Diebold expects to recognize a pretax loss on the deal in the range of $45 million to $55 million.
Last year Premier generated 2.8 percent of Diebold’s revenue. Diebold faced repeated criticism over the reliability and security of its touch-screen voting machines and began looking for a buyer for Premier more than two years ago.
via Diebold Sells US Voting Machine Unit.
Who Opposes American Manufacturing? II
Who Opposes American Manufacturing? II
By Dave Johnson - | OurFuture.org
A country’s economic power comes from manufacturing. But while other countries have industrial policies, America has a de-industrialization policy. We have handed our country’s manufacturing capacity over to other countries, and as a result we have to borrow more and more to be able to buy the things that we used to make. How did this come to be? Who would be against American manufacturing?
The other day, in the first Who Would Be Against American Manufacturing? post I wrote about representatives of foreign interests lobbying in the US for trade policies that benefit companies in other countries at the expense of America’s factories, workers, companies, communities and economic power. It is to be expected that a country will work to increase manufacturing within its borders – even if we don’t – and these firms helping the efforts of other countries are required to register with the Department of Justice as “foreign agents.” I traced an anonymous comment left at my own blog back to one of these, after I wrote about President Obama’s upcoming “China tire case” trade decision.
But are all foreign agents registering, as they are supposed to? The other day I came across an interesting example of an organization that is working to convince Americans to hand over our manufacturing capacity to other countries. In my post, National Association Of Manufacturers Blasts … American Manufacturing? I wrote,
via Who Opposes American Manufacturing? II | OurFuture.org.
Conservatives on Obama’s stay-in-school speech: “Indoctrination,” “brainwashing,” Communist China, Hitler Youth
Conservatives on Obama’s stay-in-school speech: “Indoctrination,” “brainwashing,” Communist China, Hitler Youth - | Media Matters for America
Numerous conservatives have claimed that President Obama’s upcoming September 8 speech about “persisting and succeeding in school,” along with classroom activities about the “importance of education,” will “indoctrinate” and “brainwash” schoolchildren. Conservatives have compared Obama’s address to Chinese communism and the Hitler Youth, while also calling for parents to “keep your kids home” from the “fascist in chief.”
Reverse Nazism and the War on Universal Healthcare
Reverse Nazism and the War on Universal Healthcare
Diary of a Mad Law Professor
By Patricia J. Williams
The spinmeisters of the right have done quite a job with what used to be straightforward English etymology. Thanks to Rush Limbaugh and Fox News, “integration” was inverted to mean “takeover” and “colorblindness” is code for abandoning the advances of the civil rights movement, which itself is synonymous with an “industry” of exclusion. It’s no surprise, then, that whenever a piece of progressive legislation comes to the table, the same manipulations come into play from right-wing pundits who shamelessly profess their desire to see the Obama presidency fail. Thus it is that America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 is being turned upside down as the neat equivalent of Germany’s Bankrupting Forced Death Act of 1939.
If you are watching the healthcare town-hall ruckuses with only common dictionary meanings in your head, you will be struck by the protesters’ general incoherence and outright nonsense, bearing no rational connection to the actual draft of the healthcare bill. As Representative Barney Frank demanded of one constituent who likened the bill to Nazism, “On what planet do you spend most of your time?”
But if you listen as though deciphering pig Latin and realize that this demographic is speaking from a well-managed, near-hypnotic looking-glass world where every word from the mouth of a Democrat (or a liberal, or a Latina, or a Canadian) is a lie, a betrayal… then it all makes sense. Their world truly has been turned inside out, by the election, by the economy, by the precarious conditions that threaten us all. But for those whose sense of identity has been premised on a raced, masculinist, conservative Christian hierarchy of American power, the world must seem even more emotionally terrifying than any actual facts would indicate.
via Reverse Nazism and the War on Universal Healthcare.
Rahm Pushing Triggers Through Olympia Snowe
OPS: So, we’re back to phucking Triggers. In case you haven’t figured it out – Rahm wouldn’t do this without being told to be Obama
Rahm Pushing Triggers Through Olympia Snowe
I thought it was weird when Olympia Snowe suddenly started pushing triggers. Rahm Emanuel has been lobbying for them since early in the year, and lately the White House has been trying to burnish the image of “triggers” by pressing liberal validators into service. And now, according to Marc Ambinder, lo and behold:
Senior White House officials, in conversations with reporters today, are floating the idea that President Obama is secretly negotiating with Sen. Olympia Snowe over a health care compromise that would phase in a government-funded health care alternative if private insurance companies fail to meet quality and cost benchmarks over a certain period of the time. The public discussion of the Snowe “compromise” is meant to test the reaction of House Democrats, who will pass a bill that includes an immediate public option added to a new health insurance exchange. The White House hopes that, having voted for a public option, House Dems would accept a “trigger” as part of a conference committee compromise rather than putting the kibosh on the entire health care reform project. In some ways, this strategy is old, and in some ways it’s new. For months, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel has been pushing the idea of a “trigger” internally, and he and Snowe regularly trade legislative and political intelligence.
That’s great. Not satisfied with working through Blue Dogs any more, Rahm is now using Republicans to write his trillion dollar bailout of the health care industry. Is this a great country or what.
And what does the White House think of the 60 Democrats in the House who pledged to vote against any bill that does not have a public plan?
via Campaign Silo » Rahm Pushing Triggers Through Olympia Snowe.
UN chief warns of climate-related disaster
UN chief warns of climate-related disaster
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon had more dire warnings about climate change Thursday as he spoke to a United Nations conference in Geneva.
He told officials from about 150 countries that time is running out for a new climate deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Only limited progress has been made to hammer out a new accord to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on reducing the gases blamed for global warming.
Ban said if world leaders don’t act immediately, sea levels could rise by up to two metres by the end of the century, threatening small island states, river deltas and low-lying coastal cities.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh told the 3rd World Climate Conference she’s worried up to a third of her country could be inundated if the projection proves to be true.
“We will pay a high price if we do not act,” Ban said during the second last day of the conference. “Climate change could spell widespread economic disaster.”
via UN chief warns of climate-related disaster.
Tribal leaders accuse Karzai team of forging 23,900 votes
OPS: This guy’s a piker compared to Republicans
Tribal leaders accuse Karzai team of forging 23,900 votes – Raw Story »
Top envoys for Afghanistan gathered in Paris on Wednesday to chart a way forward after claims of massive fraud cast a pall over the presidential election and threatened to set back peace efforts.
US special representative Richard Holbrooke joined counterparts from 26 countries and organisations for talks on Afghanistan’s future after the August 20 vote was mired in allegations of ballot-stuffing and voter intimidation.
Afghanistan’s election commission is investigating more than 2,500 complaints of irregularities, while preliminary results of the vote are expected to be announced by Monday.
The New York Times reports, “Just a week before this country’s presidential election, the leaders of a southern Afghan tribe called Bariz gathered to make a bold decision: they would abandon the incumbent and local favorite, Hamid Karzai, and endorse his challenger, Abdullah Abdullah.”
via Raw Story » Tribal leaders accuse Karzai team of forging 23,900 votes.
Pat Buchanan: Hitler didn’t want war
Pat Buchanan: Hitler didn’t want war - Raw Story »
Political columnist Pat Buchanan is coming under fire for a column arguing that Adolf Hitler didn’t want to launch a European war, and that World War II could have been avoided if Poland had agreed to hand over the city of Gdansk to Germany.
He even appears to have implied that the Holocaust wouldn’t have happened if the Allied powers hadn’t guaranteed Poland’s security.
In his column published Monday by Creators Syndicate, Buchanan wrote:
The German-Polish war [sic] had come out of a quarrel over a town the size of Ocean City, Md., in summer. Danzig, 95 percent German, had been severed from Germany at Versailles in violation of Woodrow Wilson’s principle of self-determination. Even British leaders thought Danzig should be returned.
Why did Warsaw not negotiate with Berlin, which was hinting at an offer of compensatory territory in Slovakia? Because the Poles had a war guarantee from Britain that, should Germany attack, Britain and her empire would come to Poland’s rescue.
…
Was Danzig worth a war? Unlike the 7 million Hong Kongese whom the British surrendered to Beijing, who didn’t want to go, the Danzigers were clamoring to return to Germany.
via Raw Story » Pat Buchanan: Hitler didn’t want war.
John Dean: Ridge is likely backtracking because of ‘political pressure from the Bush clan.’
John Dean: Ridge is likely backtracking because of ‘political pressure from the Bush clan.’ - Think Progress »
In recent days, former Homeland Security Adviser Tom Ridge has been backing away from claims he made in his memoir that Bush administration officials may have been pushing to raise the security alert level for political reasons. Ridge has been on an apology tour this week, insisting that he never meant to insinuate any bad motives on his former colleagues. Last night on MSNBC, former Nixon adviser John Dean said that he believes Ridge likely received pressure from Bush officials to backtrack:
OLBERMANN: Is there any reason to suggest that that back pedaling owes to political pressure or something like that?
DEAN: I would suspect the fact that Rumsfeld and Ashcroft came out and hit him pretty hard has affected his thinking on this whole matter. He doesn’t seem to be as clear on what he wrote now that they’ve spoken out on the issue.
And also Keith, he did indeed imply a rather serious criminal charge if this conduct indeed had been undertaken. So I think there’s a lot of reasons that he probably has backed off and political pressure from the Bush clan probably is part of the reason.
Watch it:
Bank Of America Asks Armless Man For Thumbprint, Then Denies To Cash His Check (VIDEO)
All Steve Valdez wanted to do was cash a check from his wife during his work break. Bank of America insisted that Mr. Valdez provide a thumbprint to verify his identity, which he was unable to do because he was born with no arms. Despite the bank teller acknowledging this, and Mr. Valdez providing two forms of photo identification, the bank still refused to cash his check.
The bank eventually called Mr. Valdez to apologize.
via Bank Of America Asks Armless Man For Thumbprint, Then Denies To Cash His Check (VIDEO).
With electronic contact lenses, bionic eyesight could become reality – SmartPlanet
With electronic contact lenses, bionic eyesight could become reality
A new generation of contact lenses built with tiny circuits and LEDs could make bionic eyesight a reality.
Researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle have created contact lenses with built-in electronics and an LED, powered wirelessly by RF.
“These lenses don’t give us the vision of an eagle or the benefit of running subtitles on our surroundings yet,” University of Washington professor Babak Parviz writes in IEEE Spectrum. “What we’ve done so far barely hints at what will soon be possible with this technology.”
While conventional contact lenses are polymers formed in various shapes to correct faulty vision, electronic contact lenses are far more “engineered.”
Parviz writes:
via With electronic contact lenses, bionic eyesight could become reality – SmartPlanet.
GOPers Decrying “Socialized Medicine” Go To Govt. Hospital For Surgeries
GOPers Decrying “Socialized Medicine” Go To Govt. Hospital For Surgeries
Republicans in Congress have raised the specter of a bloated, “socialized,” bureaucrat-run nightmare of a health care system as a means of undermining the White House’s effort at a systematic overhaul. And yet, as Democratic sources are now pointing out, when medical crisis hit close to home, many of these same officials turned to a government-run hospital for their own intensive care and difficult surgeries.
Take, for instance, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who warned that “a government takeover of health care” would “take away the care that people already have [and] are perfectly satisfied with.” In its place, the senator said, would be “a system in which care and treatment will be either delayed or denied.”
That was July 2009. In February 2003, McConnell actually went to one of those government-run institutions (where treatment is, apparently, “either delayed or denied”) for a procedure of his own. The Kentucky Republican traveled to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, to have an elective coronary artery bypass surgery after it had been revealed that he had arterial blockages.
via GOPers Decrying “Socialized Medicine” Go To Govt. Hospital For Surgeries.
GOP Senator: Obama Determined To Turn Terrorists Loose On U.S. Soil
Inhofe blasts Obama at Grove town hall – Tulsa World:
GROVE — Right-thinking Americans can only hope the country will survive the next 16 months of the Obama administration until Republicans can regain control of Congress, U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe said Wednesday.“I never dreamed I would see an administration try to disavow all the things that have made this country different from all others,” Inhofe told more than 300 people at a town hall meeting in the Grove Community Center.
“I have never seen so many things happening at one time so disheartening to America.” Inhofe found a highly receptive audience. Many wore T-shirts of a local organization called Get America Back. Its Web site promises “a plan to eliminate the socialist government and return Americas (sic) freedoms.”
The “plan” is a link to a YouTube video by Lloyd Marcus, a Florida artist and singer making the circuit of anti-Obama “Tea Party” rallies.
via Tulsa World: Inhofe blasts Obama at Grove town hall.
Federal Government Needs Massive Hiring Binge, Study Finds
Federal Government Needs Massive Hiring Binge, Study Finds - – washingtonpost.com
The federal government needs to hire more than 270,000 workers for “mission-critical” jobs over the next three years, a surge prompted in part by the large number of baby-boomer federal workers reaching retirement age, according to the results of a government-wide survey being released Thursday.
The numbers also reflect the Obama administration’s intent to take on several enormous challenges, including the repair of the financial sector, fighting two wars, and addressing climate change.
“It has to win the war for talent in order to win the multiple wars it’s fighting for the American people,” said Max Stier, president and chief executive of the Partnership for Public Service, the think tank that conducted the survey of 35 federal agencies, representing nearly 99 percent of the federal workforce.
via Federal Government Needs Massive Hiring Binge, Study Finds – washingtonpost.com.
White House Negotiating With Snowe Over A ‘Trigger Public Option’
CNN: White House Negotiating With Snowe Over A ‘Trigger Public Option’
CNN’s Ed Henry and Dana Bash are reporting that the White House is negotiating with Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) — a member of the so-called Gang-of-six tasked with producing a bipartisan health care bill in the Senate Finance Committee — to pass a “scaled-back bill that would focus on insurance reforms that both sides could agree to, but would not have a full public option, instead, would have a so-called trigger.” The negotiations come in advance of the Presidsent’s September 9th address to a joint session of Congress, in which Obama is expected to lay out a specific vision for health care reform:
What we’re hearing that she’s talking about with White House staff is sort of a scaled-back bill that would focus on insurance reforms that both sides could agree to, but would not have a full public option, instead, would have a so-called trigger. What that means in layman’s terms is basically that the insurance companies would have a couple of years to make some dramatic changes. If they do not make those changes, then a public option would be triggered.
Watch it:
via Wonk Room » CNN: White House Negotiating With Snowe Over A ‘Trigger Public Option’.
I have been abducted by aliens, says Japan’s first lady
I have been abducted by aliens, says Japan’s first lady 
Move over Michelle, watch your backs, Carla and Sarah. There’s a new kid on the first lady block, and she looks like upstaging the lot of you.
Miyuki Hatoyama, wife of Japan’s Prime Minister-elect, Yukio Hatoyama, is a lifestyle guru, a macrobiotics enthusiast, an author of cookery books, a retired actress, a divorcee, and a fearless clothes horse for garments of her own creation, including a skirt made from Hawaiian coffee sacks. But there is more, much more. She has travelled to the planet Venus. And she was once abducted by aliens.
The 62-year-old also knew Tom Cruise in a former incarnation – when he was Japanese – and is now looking forward to making a Hollywood movie with him. “I believe he’d get it if I said to him, ‘Long time no see’, when we meet,” she said in a recent interview. But it is her claim in a book entitled “Very Strange Things I’ve Encountered” that she was abducted by aliens while she slept one night 20 years ago, that has suddenly drawn attention following last Sunday’s poll.
via I have been abducted by aliens, says Japan’s first lady – Asia, World – The Independent.
A cordless future for electricity?
OPS: Nikola Tesla said he had this solved in the 1890′s
A cordless future for electricity? 
(CNN) — Electronics such as phones and laptops may start shedding their power cords within a year.
That’s the prediction of Eric Giler, CEO of WiTricity, a company that’s able to power light bulbs using wireless electricity that travels several feet from a power socket.
WiTricity’s version of wireless electricity — which converts power into a magnetic field and sends it sailing through the air at a particular frequency — still needs to be refined a bit, he said, but should be commercially available soon.
Giler, whose company is a spinoff of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology research group, says wireless electricity has the potential to cut the need for power cords and throw-away batteries.
“Five years from now, this will seem completely normal,” he said.
“The biggest effect of wireless power is attacking that huge energy wasting that goes on where people buy disposable batteries,” he said. Watch Giler demonstrate the idea
via A cordless future for electricity? – CNN.com.
First Genetic Link Between Reptile And Human Heart Evolution Found
First Genetic Link Between Reptile And Human Heart Evolution Found
Scientists at the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease (GICD) have traced the evolution of the four-chambered human heart to a common genetic factor linked to the development of hearts in turtles and other reptiles.
The research, published in the September 3 issue of the journal Nature, shows how a specific protein that turns on genes is involved in heart formation in turtles, lizards and humans.
“This is the first genetic link to the evolution of two, rather than one, pumping chamber in the heart, which is a key event in the evolution of becoming warm-blooded,” said Gladstone investigator Benoit Bruneau, PhD, who led the study. “The gene involved, Tbx5, is also implicated in human congenital heart disease, so our results also bring insight into human disease.”
From an evolutionary standpoint, the reptiles occupy a critical point in heart evolution.
via First Genetic Link Between Reptile And Human Heart Evolution Found.
Bachmann and Beck actively trying to get Obama killed
Bachmann and Beck actively trying to get Obama killed - Raw Story »
Dan Savage:
Author and columnist Dan Savage believes that Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) is “a big problem for the Republican Party.”
“They began 20-30 years ago pandering to the religious right,” Savage told MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann on Tuesday. “And the religious right realized that it could just run its own candidates, elect its own people, and put the nuts in charge, and that’s what they’ve done. Michele Bachmann is a religious extremist and a nut.”
Bachmann told a cheering audience on Monday that to stop health care reform, “What we have to do today is make a covenant, to slit our wrists, be blood brothers on this thing. This will not pass. We will do whatever it takes to make sure this doesn’t pass.”
“She’s the kind of person who once upon a time the Republicans could count on her vote and her support for saner, more middle-of-the-road Republican candidates who could work with Democrats and weren’t bat-crap crazy,” Savage emphasized. “And now she’s the one who’s in there, and they’re stuck with her and her extremism.”
via Raw Story » Dan Savage: Bachmann and Beck actively trying to get Obama killed.
Another Democratic senator bails on public option
Another Democratic senator bails on public option - The Raw Story »
A moderate Democratic senator from Arkansas has bailed on the so-called public option health insurance plan after previously publicly supporting the idea.
Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) said Wednesday that she will oppose the public option, which would create a government-run insurance provider to compete with private insurers. Insurance companies say it will eat into their profit margins and result in completely government-run health insurance; supporters say it will trim health insurance costs and make insurance more affordable.
Lincoln’s vote could be critical to such a measure. Democrats need 51 votes to pass a healthcare bill in the Senate under “reconciliation,” a gambit that allows them to bypass the traditional 60 needed to beat back a filibuster.
via The Raw Story » Another Democratic senator bails on public option.
Sweeping the Deficit Under the Rug
Sweeping the Deficit Under the Rug – Dustin Ensinger – economyincisis.org
Few Democrats or Republicans are willing to address one of the toughest issues facing the nation: out of control national debts.
While the nation debates the issues of cap-and-trade, health care reform, the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan and many other issues, the fact that America is on a wholly unsustainable course fiscally is often left out of the debate.
Both Democrats and Republicans are out to score political points on the issues, but few are willing to address one of the toughest issues facing the nation: out of control national debts.
“Without some impending calamity, politicians of both parties recoil from doing anything unpopular that might bring the budget into balance over, say, the next six or seven years,” Robert J. Samuelson of Newsweek writes. “The idea of anticipating and preempting future problems is not on their agenda.”
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
BLS: Unemployment Worse than Numbers Indicate
BLS: Unemployment Worse than Numbers Indicate – Craig Harrington -economyincisis.org
The number of metro-areas showing 10 percent or more unemployment has increased 10 fold.
The self-fulfilling prophecy on Wall Street came true yesterday. Market analysts from The New York Times and CNN declared that September was the worst month for trading and that this month would kill the summer-time rally. As a result, September 1 saw the Dow shed 185 points (1.96 percent), the NASDAQ shed 40 points (2 percent) and the S&P fell by over 22.5 points (2.21 percent).
This morning market analysts with CNNMoney.com were expecting another bad opening followed by a rough day on the floor. Investors woke up on Wednesday in the United States to see several hours of declines on foreign markets in Europe and Asia. The early decline on Wall Street has flattened out and each of the major composites were rough even for the morning.
Investors worldwide are now worried that the stock rally is over, and unless they start putting more of their money into portfolio investments it surely will be.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
The Housing Recovery Fantasy
The Housing Recovery Fantasy – Dustin Ensinger – economyincisis.org
Many experts expect home prices to once again start falling, and foreclosures to increase.
With the Case-Shiller home price index rising 2.9 percent in the second quarter after a three year decline, new home sales reaching their highest level since last September and home starts rising for five straight months, many are under the impression that the housing market has stabilized and is set for steady improvement.
However, many experts simply do not believe that is the case. Instead, they expect home prices to once again start falling, foreclosures become more widespread and housing construction to stagnate.
“We’re entering the phase where the homeowner has to earn his way out of this mess,” Mark Hanson, who runs a California real estate research firm, told CNNMoney.com. “This summer is shaping up as the gateway into the next move down.”
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Two hurdles for Uncle Sam
Two hurdles for Uncle Sam - Peter Morici – Business Spectator
The recession has wiped out all the jobs created in the private sector over the last decade.
On Friday, the US Labor Department will report employment data for August. In July, the economy lost 247,000 jobs, and the consensus forecast is for another 200,000 jobs lost in August.
Unemployment was 9.4 percent in July, and professional forecasters expect it to surge to 9.6 percent for August. My forecast indicates it will pierce 10 percent by year-end. Factoring in adults that have left the labor force and those who work part-time but would prefer full-time jobs, the unemployment rate is greater than 17 percent.
From December 2007 through July 2009, the economy lost 6.7 million jobs. The recession has wiped out all the jobs created in the private sector over the last decade.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
The Lost Stimulus Clause
The Lost Stimulus Clause – Dustin Ensinger – economyincisis.org
If done right, the “buy American” provision could have been a boon to the American economy and especially its beleaguered manufacturing base.
Lost in all the hullabaloo surrounding the $787 billion stimulus package was the fact that the most vital part of it, the “buy American” clause, was watered-down and rendered nearly impotent due to complaints, both foreign and domestic.
Led by the Chinese government, American multinational corporations such as General Electric Co. and Caterpillar Inc. and interest groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, opponents of the provision were able to effectively influence Congress and the White House. In the end, the “buy American” provision proved to be completely ineffective.
If done right, the “buy American” provision could have been a boon to the American economy and especially its beleaguered manufacturing base. Government purchases account for 20 percent of the American economy, and much of those purchases are for manufactured goods.
via Economyincrisis.org – America’s Economic Report – Daily.
Re-Appointed Fed Chief Ben Bernanke Didn’t Get Us Out of the Economic Crisis, He Helped Cause It | Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace | AlterNet
Re-Appointed Fed Chief Ben Bernanke Didn’t Get Us Out of the Economic Crisis, He Helped Cause It
By William Greider, The Nation.
Ben Bernanke doesn’t serve the public. He doesn’t even see its existence.
The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer can be thought of as the Potemkin village of American democracy. Every evening, it presents a prettified version of political debate — ever so civil and high-minded — that thoroughly blots out the substance of dissenting critics or the untamed opinions of mere citizens. PBS’s sanitized version of news was deployed this summer to assist the charm offensive launched by the Federal Reserve and its embattled chairman, Ben Bernanke. The NewsHour staged a “town meeting” in Kansas City at which Bernanke fielded prescreened questions from preselected citizens. As town meetings go, this was strictly polite. As TV goes, it was deadly dull. The citizens were so deferential they seemed sedated. Jim Lehrer was so laconic, several times I thought he had nodded off.
The message, however, was reassuring. With folksy talk, Bernanke came across as a mild-mannered professor earnestly coping with financial complexities and sleepless nights. Gentle Ben struggles to save us from another Great Depression. People are angry at the Fed (and the elected government) for devoting so many trillions to bail out failing bankers while the populace copes with the disastrous results of the bankers’ folly. Bernanke said he too hated the bailouts but had no choice. “I am as disgusted as you are,” Gentle Ben allowed. To show further he is a good guy, Bernanke appointed a labor leader, Denis Hughes, as chairman of the board at the New York Federal Reserve Bank (the operating president, however, is a Goldman Sachs guy).
Why Is Universal Health Care ‘Un-American’?
Why Is Universal Health Care ‘Un-American’? | CommonDreams.org
by Rev. Jim Rigby
Last week supporters of health-care reform gathered around the country, including in Austin, TX, where 2,000 people crowded into a downtown church to hear speakers talk about different aspects of the issue. Asked to speak about the ethical dimensions of health care, I tried to go beyond short-term political strategizing and ask more basic questions. This is an edited version of what I said.
Is anyone else here having trouble with the fact that we are even having this conversation? Is anyone else having trouble believing this topic is really controversial? I have been asked to talk about the ethical dimension of health care. Here’s one way to frame such a discussion:
If an infant is born to poor parents, would we be more ethical to give medicine to that child so he or she does not die prematurely of preventable diseases, or would we be more ethical if we let the child die screaming in his or her parent’s arms so we can keep more of our money?
Or, let’s say someone who worked for Enron, and now is penniless, contracted bone cancer. I’ve been asked to discuss whether we are more ethical if we provide such people medicine that lessens their pain. Or would we be more ethical to let them scream through the night in unbearable agony so we can pay lower taxes?
via Why Is Universal Health Care ‘Un-American’? | CommonDreams.org.
Could we replace the nation’s pavement with solar panels?
Could we replace the nation’s pavement with solar panels? – | Grist
A while back I mentioned Solar Roadways, a clean-energy idea that appears kind of kooky, at least on the surface. (See what I did there?) The notion is to replace paved surfaces with rugged, specially built solar panels.
The Solar Road Panels would contain not just solar panels but LED lighting (to enable real-time communication with drivers), heating units (to prevent icing), high-voltage power transmission lines, and even electric-vehicle recharging stations. It’s transportation, power, and grid infrastructure in the same place.
At the limit, if all paved surfaces in the U.S. were replaced with 15% efficiency solar panels, the resulting distributed power network could provide three times the electricity the nation consumes, with zero carbon emissions and no additional power grid infrastructure. (Yes, I’m aware manufacturing, installing, and maintaining it would generate emissions, as with any infrastructure project.)
So crazy it just might work? Apparently the Dept. of Transportation thinks so: Solar Roadways has received a $100,000 contract from DOT to build a prototype:
via Could we replace the nation’s pavement with solar panels? | Grist.
Is Obama Dumping the Public Option?
Is Obama Dumping the Public Option? – | Mother Jones
“It had better be wrong.”
That was the response of Representative Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) to Wednesday’s Politico story that the Obama White House, as it retools its strategy for health care reform, has no intention of fighting for the inclusion of a public option that would offer government-run health insurance to companies and people who can’t obtain affordable coverage elsewhere. And Jacob Hacker, a health policy expert who can be called the godfather of the public option, says, “The White House…has to be told in no uncertain terms that dropping the public plan is stupid and premature.”
The Politico piece did not quote by name President Barack Obama or his senior advisers saying they were dumping the public option from their must-include list. So it’s possible this was a trial balloon that could burst. But even though Obama had already declined to vow he would go to the mat for a public option, the story did rile up progressives on and off Capitol Hill.
“Without a public option, this bill will do a lot of nice things but only by throwing a couple hundred billion dollars at insurance companies,” says Nadler, adding that a public option is necessary to hold down the cost of health insurance. “What is the point of passing a bill that mandates people to buy insurance that is going to be unaffordable?” he says.
via Is Obama Dumping the Public Option? | Mother Jones.
Why do conservatives want to keep health care from Americans
Why do conservatives want to keep health care out of reach for Americans? Thom challenges Heather Higgins of the Independent Women’s Forum.
via YouTube – Why do conservatives want to keep health care from Americans.
The Secret Government – PT. 1/2
Ring of Fire
After the Watergate scandal broke, Congress actually had the courage and the conviction to begin a review of the CIA, and as a result, uncovered some pretty startling facts about the illegal activities this organization had been carrying out for decades. Fast forward to today and there’s no doubt that a sweeping investigation of the agency would find even more corruption and illegal actions than it did 4 decades ago. Unfortunately, we just don’t have enough members of Congress who actually possess a spine to get the ball rolling. Mike Papantonio of Air America’s Ring of Fire talks with investigative journalist Christopher Hayes about the need for a new Church Committee, and about what a committee like that could find today.
YouTube – The Secret Government – PT. 1/2.
The Secret Government – PT. 2/2
Verizon Sponsoring Anti-Climate Rally Backed By Coal Giant Massey Energy
OPS: your Verizon dollars at work
Verizon Sponsoring Anti-Climate Rally Backed By Coal Giant Massey Energy- Think Progress »
On Labor Day, tens of thousands of people will be gathering for the coal-powered “Friends of America Rally” in Holden, WV. The point of the gathering is to rail against the Waxman-Markey clean energy legislation. It will feature right-wing guests such as Sean Hannity and Ted Nugent (who once ranted about killing Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton), and is being pushed by mountaintop-removal mining company Massey Energy. Last week, Massey CEO Don Blankenship even recorded a video inviting people to attend the rally, saying they would learn about how “environmental extremists and corporate America are both trying to destroy your jobs.” Watch it:
via Think Progress » Verizon Sponsoring Anti-Climate Rally Backed By Coal Giant Massey Energy.
Forced Circumcision: The New Right Wing Meme
Forced Circumcision: The New Right Wing Meme - | ePluribus Media
Perhaps disappointed that death panels failed to frighten the tar and feathers out of the average American, the right wing appears to have settled on a new meme to undercut healthcare reform: the CDC will force males to undergo circumcision. (h/t Avahome.)
Loosely based on a CDC report to be presented at an AIDS prevention gathering in Atlanta, Fox News, Reason Online, and The Drudge Report claim that the CDC is considering forced circumcision of all males to prevent the spread of HIV.
David Harsanyi, a Denver Post columnist and author of Nanny State wrote in Reason Online:
Here’s the problem: Why is the CDC launching campaigns to “universally” promote a medical procedure? If you’re an adult (and nuts) or a parent, no one stands in your way of having a bris. Today 79 percent of men are circumcised already, and even if 100 percent were, the effect on the collective health of the nation would be negligible. If this is the standard, where does it stop?
via Forced Circumcision: The New Right Wing Meme | ePluribus Media.
Analysis and discussion about the world we live in.
The Internet is slowly being censored, filtered, and throttled: Why are our corporate governments trying to control information?
Note: The following is an update of “Three Must See Presentations: This is the power of the Internet and why our corporate governments are trying to control it”, which in turn was the first half of Part IV for “What the Future Holds: The next stage in the resource wars”.
There is a very good possibility that the World War III option is an attempt to control the Internet by eliminating Net Neutrality and online free speech. It appears that the boundaries set between countries through treaties are vanishing due to the exponential dissemination of information through the Net. This is in conflict with the wishes of the oligarchy who are willing to do anything to maintain control. After all, it is, in large part, our technological evolution that is bringing about our socioeconomic metamorphosis that we see manifesting itself as a global financial crisis.
via Chycho.com – Analysis and discussion about the world we live in..
Will Congress Be Pushed to Act on Climate Change? EPA to Declare CO2 and Other Greenhouse Gases Pollutants
Will Congress Be Pushed to Act on Climate Change? EPA to Declare CO2 and Other Greenhouse Gases Pollutants - | BuzzFlash.org
After two years of waiting, it looks like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is finally trying to spur some real action in Congress on slow-moving climate change legislation.
A 2007 Supreme Court ruling found that greenhouse gases are considered air pollutants covered by the Clean Air Act, and could be regulated if the government determined they were a threat to the public. This week, the EPA took the first step.
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson announced in a press conference on Monday that the agency would undertake a formal endangerment finding within the next couple of months on greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that threaten public health and welfare. Those under scrutiny include methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, sulfur hexafluoride and… carbon dioxide.
Debt is capitalism’s dirty little secret
Debt is capitalism’s dirty little secret - FT.com – By Ben Funnell 
Just why is there so much debt in the Anglo-Saxon world? Bankers and regulators know well that it is in nobody’s long-term interests to have allowed borrowing to escalate to a position where the US now owes far more, as a multiple of the economy, than at the start of the Great Depression.
The answer is capitalism’s dirty little secret: excessive lending was the only way to maintain the living standards of the vast bulk of the population at a time when wealth was being concentrated in the hands of an elite.
The amount by which the elite has benefited is startling, and illustrates the problem with lightly regulated free markets: the rich get much richer while the rest do not get richer at all. According to Société Générale economists, the inflation-adjusted income of the highest-paid fifth of US earners has risen by 60 per cent since 1970, while it has fallen by more than 10 per cent for the rest. As was recently pointed out in the New York Review of Books, the Walton family, of Wal-Mart fame, is wealthier than the bottom third of the US population put together – about 100m people. These are staggering statistics, confirmed by measures such as the US and UK’s ever-rising Gini coefficients, which estimate income disparity. Another way of putting this is that the share of profits in gross domestic product is at a 100-year high, or was until very recently.
Put simply, the benefits of economic growth have gone into the pockets of plutocrats rather than the bulk of the population. So why has there been no revolution? Because there was a solution: debt. If you couldn’t earn it, you could borrow it. Cheap financing was made widely available. Financial innovations such as the asset-backed securities market aided this process, as did government-sponsored agencies such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Regulators welcomed it all while perhaps taking insufficient account of the moral hazard problem it posed: that ever-increasing leverage meant the authorities had to keep interest rates low, otherwise the debt burden would cripple consumption. This prompted more leverage, which exacerbated the problem.
via FT.com / Comment / Opinion – Debt is capitalism’s dirty little secret.
Pfizer To Pay Record $2.3B Penalty For Illegal Drug Promotions
Pfizer To Pay Record $2.3B Penalty For Illegal Drug Promotions
Pfizer Inc., the world’s largest drug maker, will pay a record $2.3 billion civil and criminal penalty over unlawful prescription drug promotions.
Announcing the settlement Wednesday, the Justice Department said that it included the largest criminal fine in U.S. history – $1.2 billion. The agreement also included a criminal forfeiture of $105 million.
Authorities called Pfizer a repeat offender, noting it is the fourth such settlement of government charges in the last decade. They said the government will monitor the company’s conduct for the next five years to rein in the abuses.
To promote the drugs, authorities said Pfizer invited doctors to consultant meetings at resort locations, paying their expenses and providing perks.
“They were entertained with golf, massages, and other activities,” said Mike Loucks, the U.S. attorney in Massachusetts.
via Pfizer To Pay Record $2.3B Penalty For Illegal Drug Promotions.
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Republicans Don't Care about Voter Fraud....owa Republicans are trying to dismiss claims that the vote count in Tuesday's Iowa Caucus was wrong. An Iowa voter told a local TV station yesterday that he noticed a 20-vote discrepancy in the count - and that Rick Santorum was the real winner of the Caucuses. Republican Party officials, though, are sticking to their first count - showing Mitt Romney as the winner by 8-votes - and there will be no recount.The Republican Party has launched a war on voters around the nation this year with strict new laws that will disenfranchise over 5 million Americans. They claim these laws are necessary to combat so-called voter fraud. Yet in Iowa - where there are no such laws - and where a very, very close and questionable election was just held - Republicans don't seem to care at all about getting it right.Clearly - the war on voters isn't about making sure the people's voices are represented accurately - it's about making sure poor people, young people, and minorities who tend to vote for Democrats - can't vote at all.-Thom(Who do you think won? Tell us here.) -
LEGALIZE Democracy
" We the corporations" On January 21, 2010, with its ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are persons, entitled by the U.S. Constitution to buy elections and run our government. __________
MOVE to AMEND
a project of the CAMPAIGN TO LEGALIZE Democracy
Help end Corporate personhood
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The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. 
